He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional” musicians play.In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death; and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. He also rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of soul in Dilla’s own “Motown,” to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. Dilla Time is a different kind of book about music, a visual experience with graphics that build those concepts step by step for fans and novices alike, teaching us to “see” and feel rhythm in a unique and enjoyable way.Dilla’s beats, startling some people with their seeming “sloppiness,” were actually the work of a perfectionist almost spiritually devoted to his music. This is the story of the man and his machines, his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators. Culled from more than 150 interviews about one of the most important and influential musical figures of the past hundred years, Dilla Time is a book as delightfully detail-oriented and unique as J Dilla’s music itself.

    right?What’s more cliché than falling for some guy in a band? —Gracyn GeorgeIt was supposed to be a no-strings fling. Nothing more. Sun, sand, sex—that’s it.. But that was before he strummed his way into my heart. Each note leaving a tingle in my spine, the lasting melodies burned into my soul.What’s more cliché than pining for the one who got away? —Gavin Keller I’ve sacrificed way too much to chase after the girl who snuck out in the middle of the night and left me wondering, What if …What was supposed to be temporary becomes a longing neither of us is willing to let go.After months of trying to move on, it’s time to forget the whole thing or sync our hearts and get In Tune.

    Loved and loathed in equal measure since their formation in 2011, the relentlessly provocative, stunningly dysfunctional "drug band with a rock problem" have dedicated themselves to constant chaos and total creative freedom at all costs.Like a tragicomic penny dreadful dreamed up by a mutant hybrid of Jean Genet, the Dadaists and Mark E. Smith, the Fat Whites' story is a frequently jaw-dropping epic of creative insurrection, narcotic excess, mental illness, wanderlust, self-sabotage, fractured masculinity, and the ruthless pursuit of absolute art.Co-written with lucidity and humour by singer Lias Saoudi and acclaimed author Adelle Stripe, Ten Thousand Apologies is that rare thing: a music book that barely features any music, a biography as literary as any novel, and a confessional that does not seek forgiveness. This is the definitive account of Fat White Family's disgraceful and radiant jihad - a depraved, romantic and furious gesture of refusal to a sanitised era.

    Part history lesson and part memoir, Songs That Shook the Planet spans genres and decades to call out the brave artists who continue to inspire necessary change in the world. You’ll hear the stories behind legendary tracks as well as the songs themselves, performed by Billie Holiday, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Too Short, and more. Listening is both empowering and haunting; too often the artists paid a shocking price for their ability to articulate injustice so forcefully. Chuck D makes the experience even more revelatory by adding his own reminiscences about how the songs - many heard on the record player at home that his mother kept spinning with a stunning range of music - influenced his early life and his own career as an agent of change. Songs That Shook the Planet reintroduces listeners to indelible songs from artists who literally put their lives on the line to speak truth to power and provides a soundtrack of civil uprising that is perhaps even more powerful and relevant today. Songs That Shook the Planet was conceived, written, and produced, by Chuck D & Lorrie Boula as the latest installment of Audible’s Words + Music franchise, with additional writing by Arthur Turnbull and Gia'na M.Garel.

    Writing it, playing it. The sway of the melody traveled through me. It kept me company as I hid my face under a mask.My dream of singing in front of the crowds was long forgotten. Now I hide in the shadows, only emerging to help fellow artists launch their careers.Enter Skyler Dalton, my teenage heartthrob.SkylerMy best friend died. My last album bombed. I punched out a paparazzi.Life hasn’t been going my way.The label offered an ultimatum, work with a professional songwriter to salvage my solo career or hit the road.Luckily, Elsie was easy to work with. I wasn’t looking for love, but what I found was a lot more than just a new song...

    His astonishing musical career stretched across the second half of the 20th Century and into the first two decades of the next, during which he released an extraordinary 63 albums, 38 that made it on to Billboard's Country Top Ten, 13 that went to #1, and 37 #1 hit singles. With his ample songbook, unique singing voice and brilliant phrasing that illuminated his uncompromising commitment to individual freedom, cut with the monkey of personal despair on his back and a chip the size of Monument Valley on his shoulder, Merle's music and his extraordinary charisma helped change the look, the sound, and the fury of American music.The Hag tells, without compromise, the extraordinary life of Merle Haggard, augmented by deep secondary research, sharp detail and ample anecdotal material that biographer Marc Eliot is known for, and enriched and deepened by over 100 new and far-ranging interviews. It explores the uniquely American life of an angry rebellious boy from the wrong side of the tracks bound for a life of crime and a permanent home in a penitentiary, who found redemption through the music of "the common man."Merle Haggard's story is a great American saga of a man who lifted himself out of poverty, oppression, loss and wanderlust, to catapult himself into the pantheon of American artists admired around the world. Eliot has interviewed more than 100 people who knew Haggard, worked with him, were influenced by him, loved him or hated him. The book celebrates the accomplishments and explore the singer's infamous dark side: the self-created turmoil that expressed itself through drugs, women, booze, and betrayal. The Hag offers a richly anecdotal narrative that will elevate the life and work of Merle Haggard to where both properly belong, in the pantheon of American music and letters.The Hag is the definitive account of this unique American original, and will speak to readers of country music and rock biographies alike.

    As Katie and the piano become daily companions, her musical skills grow and grow. Together they play beautiful music to match her every mood. But when Katie moves away for college, the piano is left behind, untouched and silent. What happens next helps the piano–and young readers–see learning as a never-ending cycle and music as a lifelong source of joy."The Piano" is an inspirational story from the perspective of the piano. It was born from Chari's personal experience as a piano teacher. She was taught on the same piano she later used as a teacher. She witnessed her students connecting with the piano and developing their own friendship. The story is illustrated by her daughter, Elle Smith, who is an award-winning artist. They started working together on this story when COVID-19 hit, channeling their creative energy into something positive during a difficult time. "The Piano" shows that learning to play an instrument is more than practicing and performing–it's a lifelong friendship. If you like stories about friendship, connection, and the joy music brings, then you'll love "The Piano".

    

    Matthew Passion.In 1727, Stefan Silbermann is a grief-stricken thirteen-year-old, struggling with the death of his mother and his removal to a school in distant Leipzig. Despite his father's insistence that he try not to think of his mother too much, Stefan is haunted by her absence, and, to make matters worse, he's bullied by his new classmates. But when the school's cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, takes notice of his new pupil's beautiful singing voice and draws him from the choir to be a soloist, Stefan's life is permanently changed.Over the course of the next several months, and under Bach's careful tutelage, Stefan's musical skill progresses, and he is allowed to work as a copyist for Bach's many musical works. But mainly, drawn into Bach's family life and away from the cruelty in the dorms and the lonely hours of his mourning, Stefan begins to feel at home. When another tragedy strikes, this time in the Bach family, Stefan bears witness to the depths of grief, the horrors of death, the solace of religion, and the beauty that can spring from even the most profound losses.Joyous, revelatory, and deeply moving, The Great Passion is an imaginative tour de force that tells the story of what it was like to sing, play, and hear Bach's music for the very first time.

    Written during 2021, Kelly’s autobiography charts the remarkable rise and fall and rise of one of rock music’s most enduring bands and the keyboard player at the heart of that journey.

    Covering his early life up to the 1990s, ‘The Barry Adamson Story’ addresses Adamson’s Mancunian and mixed-race roots, beginning in the late 1950s, through to the highs of his momentous musical achievements and the lows of psychiatric hospitals and drug rehabs. Using a ‘noir’ style of self examination, he also investigates the acute loss of his parents and sister in his early twenties, multiple failed relationships and arrives at the beginnings of a successful Hollywood soundtrack career.

    But despite its outsized impact, a question looms even larger: why did frontman Jeff Mangum, just as the record propelled him to the brink of music superstardom, choose instead to disappear entirely? The mystery has perplexed listeners for decades—until now. In barely two years, Neutral Milk Hotel rose from house show obscurity in Athens, Georgia, to widespread hype and critical acclaim, selling out rock clubs across the country and gracing the tops of numerous year-end best-of lists. But just as his band was reaching the escape velocity necessary to ascend from indie rock success to mainstream superstar, Mangum hit the eject button. After the 1998 release of Aeroplane and a worldwide tour to support it, Mangum stopped playing shows, releasing new music, or even doing interviews. He never explained why, not even to his friends or colleagues, but thanks to both the strength of Aeroplane and his vexing decision to walk away from rock stardom, Neutral Milk Hotel’s impact only grew from there. In Endless Endless, Adam Clair finds the answer to indie rock’s biggest mystery, which turns out to be much more complicated and fascinating than the myths or popular speculation would have you believe.To understand Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel and Aeroplane requires a deep dive into the unconventional inner workings of the mercurial collective from which they emerged, the legendary Elephant 6 Recording Company. Endless Endless details the rise and fall of this radical music scene, the lives and relationships of the artists involved and the colossal influence that still radiates from it, centered around the collective’s accidental figurehead, one of the most idolized and misunderstood artists in the world, presenting Mangum and his collaborators in vividly human detail and shining a light into the secret world of these extraordinary and aggressively bizarre artists. Endless Endless offers unprecedented access to this notoriously mysterious collective, featuring more than 100 new interviews and dozens of forgotten old ones, along with never-before-seen photos, answering questions that have persisted for decades while also provoking new ones. In this deeply researched account, Endless Endless examines not just how the Elephant 6 came to be so much more than the sum of its parts, but how community can foster art—and how art can build community.

    The book explores the swirl of themes that orbit and entangle these projects from a starting point in musical analysis and features new interviews with key collaborators from the period: producer Tony Visconti, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, musical director Henry Hey, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and assistant sound engineer Erin Tonkon.These works tackle the biggest of ideas: identity, creativity, chaos, transience and immortality. They enact a process of individuation for the Bowie meta-persona and invite us to consider what happens when a star dies. In our universe, dying stars do not disappear - they transform into new stellar objects, remnants and gravitational forces. The radical potential of the Blackstar is demonstrated in the rock star supernova that creates a singularity resulting in cultural iconicity. It is how a man approaching his own death can create art that illuminates the immortal potential of all matter in the known universe.

    Tupac walked with his eyes looking forward and his head hung low through the same hardened steel gates of the hundred- and fifty-year-old prison that men such as "Lucky" Luciano and John Gotti had passed through before him. Little has been written or said about Tupac Shakur's time inside one of America's most notorious prisons. He remained incarcerated for seven months until his unlikely release on bail on October 12th of the same year.Tupac Behind Bars is a glimpse inside the 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee's tumultuous time in Dannemora. It marked an important period in his life, one during which he got married, met his self-professed biological father, and signed a deal with Death Row Records on a handwritten contract.The author, Michael Christopher, was a career corrections officer in New York State who reached the rank of Lieutenant before his retirement after almost twenty-seven years of service. During the course of his duties, he had contact with tens of thousands of prisoners, including infamous inmates like David Berkowitz a.k.a. 'The Son of Sam' and Robert Chambers a.k.a. 'The Preppy Killer', but after more than three decades, the one that left him with a positive memory is Tupac Shakur. Tupac Behind Bars is Officer Christopher's account of his personal encounters with the famous rapper at the Clinton Correctional Facility.

    As a performer and a civil rights activist, the Queen of Soul used her voice to uplift freedom fighters and the Black community during the height of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Her song “Respect” was an anthem of identity, survival, and joy. It gave hope to people trying to make change. And when Aretha sang, the world sang along.With Hanif Abdurraqib’s poetic voice and Ashley Evans’s dynamic illustrations, Sing, Aretha, Sing! demonstrates how one brave voice can give new power to a nation, and how the legacy of Aretha Franklin lives on in a world still fighting for freedom.

    The traumatic brain injury she sustains changes everything. Her life is turned upside down. Her steady job as publicist and trusted friends and colleagues are called into question. Even her own reflection staring back at her from the mirror seems alien. As she navigates the legal and medical battles before her, Melissa also begins to challenge her own fractured self.For a publicist, identity is everything. What begins as a series of snapshot memories soon becomes an inspiring personal tale of recovery, as Melissa questions both her own identity and her career. What does it mean to suddenly disappear from a rock'n'roll lifestyle when your whole professional life has been dedicated to making others famous?Heavy Metal Headbang is a defiant memoir like no other, confronting our celebrity-obsessed culture as well as the social challenges that come with recovering from a life-changing injury.

    As a leader of the minimalist movement in the 1960s, his works have become central to the musical landscape worldwide, influencing generations of younger musicians, choreographers and visual artists. He has explored non-Western music and American vernacular music from jazz to rock, as well as groundbreaking music and video pieces. He toured the world with his own ensemble and his compositions are performed internationally by major orchestras and ensembles.Now Reich sits down with past collaborators, fellow composers and musicians as well as visual artists influenced by his work to reflect on his prolific career as a composer as well as the music that inspired him and that has been inspired by him, including:David LangBrian EnoRichard SerraMichael GordonMichael Tilson ThomasRussell HartenbergerRobert HurwitzStephen SondheimJonny GreenwoodDavid HarringtonElizabeth Lim-DuttonDavid RobertsonMicaela HaslamAnne Teresa de KeersmaekerJulia WolfeNico MuhlyBeryl KorotColin CurrieBrad Lubman